ABSTRACT
This arrangement holds for the whole year, enabling an immediate and ongoing opportunity for student-teachers to test in the classroom the propositions encountered in the course. The practicum is seen as an essential part of the curriculum studies course — a part which provides a context for student-teachers themselves to develop further their theory of teaching through the application of a form of educational enquiry into their own teaching of a particular curriculum area. The substance of the course is the set of understandings that emerges from the testing (through participant research conducted during the practicum component of the course) of propositions about science teaching and science curriculum encountered during the parallel non-practicum component of the course. A n attempt is being made to structure the interaction of theory and practice as explained above through the development of 'tasks'. Each task identifies a particular educational problem relating to science education, provides a sample of the relevant literature of the field, and requires student-teachers undertaking the task to research some of the claims made in respect of the identified issue in the literature. Student-teachers negotiate their own science education curriculum by completing some out of a range of prepared tasks, and by wri t ing and then carrying out their 'own' tasks designed on a matter of particular interest to themselves. In brief, each task requires that the studentteachers actually try out a range of different science teaching strategies and reflect critically on their science teaching, making explicit their own theories about science teaching, and considering their own theories in relation to theories advanced in the literature of the field and to their own practical teaching experiences. Assessment: tutors' appraisals of students' work in tasks are the main form of assessment. The criterion invoked in this assessment is the extent to which the requirements of the tasks are complied with. As in most courses of the BA (Ed) program, assessment is competitive — students are awarded grades for their work in the course which contribute to an aggregate list at the end of third year. This aggregate influences directly the students' opportunities for employment.
